Provincial cuts theme of latest West Perth council meeting

West Perth municipal council held their regular meeting last Monday, May 6 and it lasted one hour. That was unusually short, especially after three weeks between meetings, but what was also somewhat unusual was that council collectively commented on the Doug Ford provincial government cutbacks they’ve experienced of late at three different points of the evening’s agenda.

Cuts to conservation authorities and libraries were mentioned, with council members throwing their arms up in frustration, but Mayor Walter McKenzie also mentioned the fight in Toronto between their mayor John Tory and Premier Ford over millions of dollars in cutbacks the province’s largest city has also received.

“I can’t stick up for Toronto but I assume they are the same as the rest of the municipalities,” said Mayor McKenzie, referring to Ford’s comments to Tory about trying to save money in every possible way. “We’ve been doing that for years. Don’t preach inefficiency to us.”

Funding was cut for the provincial inter-library delivery service with no notice, although West Perth Library Board member Coun. Annamarie Murray said the county libraries are working on trying to solve the issue themselves. However, it still doesn’t help a library patron from requesting a book from Ottawa, for instance, as that will not happen. If some sort of alternative returns, there will be a cost to the libraries.

“What would be good is if they [provincial government] were giving out the money in April I guess we were free to use the money however we wished. If we would have known at the time that they’re giving us money but they’re taking away funding for a service, we could have figured that into the budget,” said Coun. Dean Trentowsky.

Cutbacks for what Conservation Ontario is calling “critical” conservation authority programs that warn people about flooding and protect property from costly damages has been reduced by half as a result of the provincial budget.

“The impact of these reductions will vary from conservation authority to conservation authority, however, they will all be felt immediately, particularly in smaller and more rural conservation authorities,” said Kim Gavine, General Manager of Conservation Ontario in a press release.

Gavine explained that cutting natural hazards funding is particularly problematic right now in light of the fact that – like everywhere else – Ontario is experiencing stronger and more frequent flood events as a result of climate change impacts.

West Perth has representation on Upper Thames River, Ausable Bayfield and Maitland Valley Conservation Authorities, with all saying at their latest meetings how sudden the announcement was.

CAO Jeff Brick, the former general manager of the UTRCA, explained it was his understanding that the proposed change in legislation talks about changing the way each board of directors votes on budgets. Municipalities will select from a basket of services for non-core mandate programs, such as tree planting and education programs for example.

“Instead of voting on the budget as a whole, each would vote on parts of it,” he said, saying it could cause chaos depending on which municipalities go in and which go out.

What was particularly galling for everyone was that the cuts each received came with no warning or discussion.

“I think the biggest thing was that there was no indication that this was going to happen,” said Mayor McKenzie. “You just woke up one day and bang, it happened.”